Happy Midwinter everybody, don't worry the sun will be coming back soon.... Oh wait, most of you can see the sun where you're at. Please tell it that I said hello. Seattle residents... well nevermind.
We celebrated here with a big old party and a two-day weekend (yahoo!). We had a fabulous dinner that couldn't be beat, and the band played again. We were named "Kevin Van Hendrix" this time around, our lead guitarist Kevin was out of the room when we voted. People seemed like they had fun and they sure danced a lot. A couple of the dancers fell over at the end of the night: the one who landed on the bottom had the wind knocked out of her pretty good and got carted off to Medical, but she was fine by the next day.
We had our traditional round of Midwinter Greetings in email from all the other stations on the continent or near it - I think the furthest north was Gough Island (what country is .za?) at 49S. There's not too much else out there! Some stations still have light in the sky, some stations even have boat transport, but midwinter is midwinter for everybody. You can turn your nose up and call it hokey, but I like the greetings. They remind us that even though we're totally isolated and there isn't so much as a flea within several hundred miles, there are still other stations out there. We heard from the Brits, the Aussies, the Koreans, Japanese, South Africans, Argentineans, Germans, etc etc - it's pretty impressive who else is wintering. Numbers range from 4 winterovers at Bird Island (UK) to I think 190 at McMurdo. We're probably the 2nd biggest here. Most other stations are out on the coast, I don't know if there's anybody else wintering at an inland station aside from us. We didn't hear from Vostok (the Russian station) so they might not be around this year.
Sunrise is still 3 months away so we won't get light any time soon. Right now it seems like it never has been light here and it never will be; pictures from the summer look fake. People are slowing down a bit and it's normal to forget common words, but nobody's getting crabby or nutty. Wintering at the South Pole just isn't the harsh experience that it used to be. Oh well too bad! We did hit -100F very briefly a while back and a few people joined the 300 club, but it was first thing Monday morning before coffee and I just wasn't up for it. Next time. Right now we're at a pleasant -79F with 8 knots of wind.
Back at the start of June we had a Galley Appreciation Day: some folks here cooked a fancy dinner for the Galley staff, and then we had an Open Mic afterwards. I can't quite describe the full, um, range of acts, but the pictures are at www.murkworks.net/~sarah/antpics.html.
Including the summer here and making a guess about when I leave, I'm about 64% done with my time here. Whoo! Time to get going on some of them winter projects. Wait, I think I've said that before. Hmmmm.
I hope you're all well out there. Best,
-Sarah
ps - seems I confused some people when I asked about cameras. Now people think I can get mail here! Hee hee. Nope, no delivery; if I order something it'll be waiting for me in Christchurch when I get off the Ice in November. It's dark and cold here and there are no airplanes, no carrier pigeons, no mail, no nothing in or out until late October. Don't know how I can get much clearer than that. It's kinda like outer space. If you leave the station, you die. Hokay? Hokay.